1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the field of identification of objects such as structures and vehicles and, in particular, to a process for the identification of structures and vehicles using laser radars.
2. Description of Related Art
The identification of targets under battlefield conditions is a major problem. Of course, direct visual contact by trained personnel is the most accurate, but this exposes them to possible attack and significantly increases personnel workload. Thus in recent years, the use of unmanned surveillance vehicles, particularly unmanned aircraft, have been used for battlefield surveillance. However, to avoid constant monitoring of the unmanned vehicle; they are being equipped with autonomous systems that identify and classify potential targets and only inform the remotely located operator when such a target is identified.
Traditional Laser radar identification techniques have limitations in identification of articulated targets because of the large number of potential target states due to the large number of potential target articulation, variations, and pose. The utility of invariant features for the model-based matching of the entire target will reduce the search space but will not yield reliable estimates of target identification and pose. One approach is use a laser radar system to map the vehicle and record invariant parameters. These observed parameters are compared to those stored in a data base to find a match. However, this method has proved to be cumbersome to implement; because the whole structure, typically vehicles such as tanks or missile launchers, had to be compared to every other structure in the data base.
Thus, it is a primary object of the invention to provide a process for the identification of objects without human intervention.
It is another primary object of the invention to provide a process for the identification of unknown objects without human intervention that uses a laser radar for illumination.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a process for the identification of objects without human intervention that uses a laser radar for illumination and which provides optimum identification with minimum computing time.